


Like Scars: A Story Told Backwards

by Desdemona



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdemona/pseuds/Desdemona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because she's found people who've proven they're worth her making an effort for, crying for, bleeding for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Scars: A Story Told Backwards

**Author's Note:**

> Pardon errors. I'm sure I'll find them on one of my billion re-reads.

 

 

(4.)

 

Andrea's death leaves the tastes of ashes on her tongue.

She yanks him on top of her, hands fisted tight in his vest and licks her way into his mouth, hoping to cleanse herself of the taste.

His kisses are equal parts desperate and confused but he doesn't argue when she pushes her pants down and hooks an ankle behind his thigh. His zipper rasping open rings in her ears, echoes through the cell. She kisses him hard, lifts into his grip as he sinks deeper into the thin mattress, careful of the bunk above his head.

He has to work his way in with short thrusts that force aching sounds out from between her teeth that sound too much like crying. The noises slow him down some, his gaze going cautious. She shakes her head, drags him close to kiss his cheek, his ear, his throat. She settles her teeth on the tendon waiting there, biting until he's rocking into her again, hard and fast.

He whispers brokenly, all curses, all the letters shaking as they spill out of his mouth. She licks the sweat off her lip, panting as they pick up a dirty, rough rhythm. He fills his hands with her ass, pulls her leg over his shoulder. The angle is deeper, his thrusts pushing him along her clit. Pressure begins to knot up in her gut, stretching hot under her skin.

It fills her until she gasps and drops her head back on the mattress, coming for all she's worth with the world going blurry at the corners. She shudders as he braces himself over her, bending her knee until it's almost to her chest.

“Come on,” he whispers. “Go again.”

She groans, lifting against him while sensation marches through her, flicking already overwrought nerve endings. He mouths at her throat, his teeth a warning along her jaw. She trembles, waiting to see if he'll do it. He chooses the safe spot of her ear, his teeth sinking in gently as he fists the sheet beside her head and rumbles against her skin.

She comes with him this time, gasping his name into her palm like a secret.

At the last moment, he kisses the back of her hand.

Like he understands.

* * * * * *

(3.)

 

She moves a little stiffly and his gaze practically touches her all over. But the instructions are clear: they've got to prepare for war. The supply run is necessary. No one goes alone anywhere. She'd rather find her bearings without anyone to see but when Rick glances at her, checking because the limp is just a little too pronounced, she only nods.

Daryl goes with her. They take his bike and loot a nearby slice of suburbia down to it's white picket bones. Without people, it looks like a graveyard of big, cookie cutter houses staring down at them with flat, judging eyes. She bends to lift her bag and can't quite resist a gasp. She goes still when his hands curve hesitantly over her hips.

“Lemme just –” he rumbles with a helplessness in his tone that makes her shift more solidly into his grip. His hand slides around to flatten against her belly, fingertips slipping under her shirt to stroke over her belly. “I'm sorry I was so –”

His hand flexes against her skin. She takes a sharp breath as his voice roughens and crackles. She covers his hands with hers, rubbing her fingers over his knuckles.

“It's okay,”she says quietly. “Bruises fade.”

He makes a choked noise behind her that sounds like it hurts. “Yeah.”

 

* * * * * *

(2.)

 

He leaves bruises on her hips, bites her shoulders, and pants harshly in her ear. He doesn't speak but there's a dampness on her flesh that isn't from sweat.

She looks at the sun setting in the distance with his face buried in her throat and his arm like a band of steel around her belly and listens to her heart thudding like a wild horse in the hollowed, curved prison of her ribs.

 

* * * * * *

(1.)

 

He looks dead when he comes back to them. Eyes red and gaunt, face drawn. She's in the cell block when he shuffles in, wide shoulders hunched against an invisible blow. Looking at him tells her everything she needs to know.

Merle Dixon has left this plane. She watches him shamble by, almost lets him pass.

“Daryl.”

He stops but doesn't turn. She hesitates. The person she is now doesn't know how to give comfort. But she wants to, a fact that startles her so completely that she goes mute.

He starts to move again.

She doesn't really want to call him again but it doesn't sit right with her to let him just go on. Maybe because they had a monster outside wearing human skin that needed to be removed from this earth. Maybe it was because these people had become her friends and she wanted to keep those friends in one piece.

But most likely it was because she understood what it was like to watch your past die in front of you. She'd been alone when it had happened to her. She stops hesitating. Because she _had_ been alone. She's done all of it alone for so long that she's still getting the hang of this working with others thing.

But if she's honest? She can't be that way anymore. Can't shut down. Because she's found people who've proven they're worth her making an effort for, crying for, bleeding for.

She touches the hilt of her sword. “Killing for,” she murmurs to herself.

Caring for.

She looks toward the open cell door and picks up her sword. She wouldn't let him be alone. They were really never meant to be in the first place.

 


End file.
